Have you known a
minor child who was unusually sober, serious, and responsible? Such kids may (a) come from
low-nurturance families,
and (b) feel they must protect their
(wounded)
caregivers and siblings be-cause no one else will. With caregiver
encouragement, such kids de-velop a strong
"Little Adult" personality subself
which feels responsi-ble for other family members' welfare and
comfort, and "keeping the fa-mily together." This hinders the
child from experiencing normal child-hood
development. David Elkind's book
The Hurried Child
describes this, tho it doesn't acknowledge personality
subselves.

Such kids can grow
into over-responsible,
controlling, codependent
adults, who feel excessive
guilt
if they don't ignore their own needs (self neglect) to prevent and reduce other people's
problems. By definition, adults strongly influenced by Little-Adult and
related subselves are wounded and have a disabled
true Self. They may become increasingly frustrated and unhappy at not achieving balanced,
interdependent pri-mary relationships. They may also unconsciously
shame their
own kids for "being selfish," "immature," not "taking care of other people."

Lesson 1 in this nonprofit Web site offers a framework of ideas, op-tions, and resources
to help
reduce
psychological wounds and
harmonize personality subselves over time
under their true Self's guidance.